Pacific leaders including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will descend on the beautiful island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands this week for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting. And the two 'big Cs' will be on the agenda.
The idyllic Cook Islands is about to see a week of high-level diplomacy and multilateral wrangling as the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting gets underway.
Leaders will spend much of that time largely alone with each other, motoring gently around the lagoon in the Teariki Moana — a luxury boat styled to evoke traditional Polynesian ocean-going vessels — with barely an advisor in sight.
Papua New Guinea's PM James Marape told reporters on Monday night he was sending his deputy John Rosso as he was busy with the upcoming national budget and "The number of leaders missing the PIF has less to do with a lack of commitment to the PIF and more to do with the punishing number of international meetings and major power summits this year, as well as the very real need to respond to a climate crisis in Vanuatu and political pressures at home," she told the ABC.
Senior officials say that for now, they've decided to put a freeze on new partners while they work out a new criterion to assess requests from countries keen to join the 21 already at the table.It's hard to remember a recent major Pacific gathering where climate change hasn't dominated the agenda, and this meeting will be no exception.
The island of Aorigi is a remote dot on the map south-east of the Solomon Islands' capital. And here on this day of celebration, spears fly.Mr Albanese is expected to come with some climate commitments in hand, promising to plough significant amounts of money into some of the multilateral and regional funds that have been set up to help deal with the impacts of climate change.
"All financial help will be welcomed. But the Pacific elders and leaders have made clear it goes beyond money, to higher ambition and climate justice," Meg Keen tells the ABC. Right now, Pacific nations are rapidly endorsing a global campaign to rapidly phase out coal, oil and gas production called theand advocates have signalled that forum leaders will be asked to give it their formal backing this week as well.
Australia, New Zealand and the United States are all working to stop China from inserting itself as a security partner in the region in the wake of Beijing's success in cementing police and security agreements with Solomon Islands. Some observers expect Australia to use the Cook Islands leaders meeting to try and embed this principle more deeply.
And while regional dynamics will remain front of mind, Pacific leaders will also discuss more distant and terrible conflicts, including Israel's war in Gaza.The 'lost tribes of Israel' theory in the Pacific, as modern conflict sparks division
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